Koch pointed to the heavy Lions being unloaded. “If we had a few of those growlers there, we might have held,” he said, obviously shamed in the company of the Armee Commander and the other SS men. Steiner could see it, and gave him some face.
“It can’t be helped,” he said. “Totenkopf is fighting for its life to the northeast. This was a much bigger offensive than the last one. How they managed it with all the chaos up near Voronezh eludes me, but now we must deal with it.”
“What do you propose to do with those Schwerepanzers?” asked Hansen. He was a highly decorated officer that had come over from 16th Armee when Manstein became overall commander of Armeegruppe South. His health was poor, and the fight his men were in now did not help his morale.
Steiner was looking at his map now, his dark brows heavy over flashing eyes. His old favorite division was finally arriving. He had been instrumental in forming the SS divisions, and Wiking in particular. Now he was finally getting some cards in hand that he could begin playing, but the situation was far from secure.
“Very well,” he said. “It is likely that one or both of their mechanized columns will get through to the road and rail lines we depend on. We know what they want, what they are driving for, so I will meet them head on. General Gille, deploy your division to shield our position here at Surovinko. With the addition of the 501st, your motorized division is now an SS Panzer Division. Congratulations, you hold Surovinko. As for Eicke and the Totenkopf Division, he is still well forward, but it would probably be better if he moved south to screen Oblivskaya. That will be my order this afternoon. General Koch, assemble anything that manages to get safely south and form a Kampfgruppe east of Surovinko on the road. I will call on you later. General Hansen, as the other two divisions up north have their flank exposed, they should fold back to form a new defensive front here. On the left, 46th Division will have to fall back and screen Chern.”
“What about the troops east of the Don?” asked Gille.
“That’s where they stay,” said Steiner. “The only good news I have this morning, aside from those heavy tanks out there, is the fact that Das Reich and Leibstandarte have nearly completed their objectives. The former is well north of Golubinskaya, and the latter has already reached Vertyachi and has now turned east as we originally planned. So we control the ground east of both their bridges over the Don, and the Fusilier MC Company of the Brandenburgers has just radioed to report they have reached the main rail line. Gentlemen, we are successfully isolating Volgograd, and I will not pull those units out.”
“Yes, but if we can’t hold this rail line open than they are isolating us,” said Hansen with a warning evident in his tone.
“That may be,” said Steiner. “So we will now fight to prevent that. Manstein tells me the 502nd Schwerepanzer Brigade is right behind this one. It should arrive on the late afternoon train, and I will leave it at Oblivskaya. Eicke has lost a good many panzers and he will need armor support. Alright, let’s get busy.”
The main road leading south to Surovinko ran right over the high ground at Hill 472, and that was where Gille posted his Westland Regiment. They had been the reserve element in the drive on Golubinskaya, and so they were the first to withdraw. Now they were on that hill, digging in with a company of AT guns. And like bad weather arriving right on schedule, Nesterov’s Tank Brigade of the 24th Tank Corps was the first to come down that road. Polyakov’s Brigade was right behind him, and as he saw the leading brigade deploying to engage, he decided to swing left, where a secondary road ran along a stream running south to the Chir. Kolypov’s Brigade veered right, and it ran into the 1st Westland Battalion. The battle for Hill 472 had begun, late on the 17th of October.
That was also the first day in many weeks that supplies had not been delivered to the depot at Surovinko. They reached Oblivskaya, but the Russians had pushed recon units south of Hill 361, eight kilometers northeast of that town, and they cut the rail where it passed through the woodland near Kovalenski. A truck convoy was organized, with the service troops unloading the train that delivered 502nd Schwerepanzer, then moving supplies into trucks to move to Surovinko. This road left the town and dipped several kilometers south of the River Chir, and it had not yet been cut. Yet as soon as he learned the rail line had been cut, Steiner realized that 3rd SS must be very hard pressed. It simply did not have enough troops to stand firm in the center north of Oblivskaya and still cover both flanks. The Russians were flowing around it like water seeking the path of least resistance.
There was now a seven kilometer wide gap between Oblivskaya and Surovinko, and that was where 1st Guard tank was heading. The Russian Corps Commanders had exercised uncharacteristic initiative in this attack. Perhaps it was the lesson of Operation Mars that taught them better, but this time they were not trying to simply plow through the German front. Instead, they utilized their mobility to seek weak points in the line to exploit, and to ebb around those flanks in any division front they encountered. Eicke needed more help, and Steiner thought he knew where he could find it.
He got on the radio to one last lost sheep from his corps, the Reichsführer Sturm Brigade that was posted to the far left of this sector. This was a unit that would have been organized much later and served in Italy, but with the big buildup of the SS Panzer Korps for Barbarossa, it came to life much earlier.
“Obersturmbannführer Gesele,” he said. “What’s going on in your sector? You haven’t reported.”
“Because there is very little to report,” said Gesele. “We’ve got only light pressure on this flank. The 46th Infantry has fallen back a little, but it is not under attack.”
“Can it hold that flank if I move your brigade?”
“At the moment I see no threat here, and besides, we are 40 Kilometers north of the Chir. All they have in front of us is infantry and they would take days to threaten anything, even if the front was undefended.”
“Alright, I need your brigade at Oblivskaya. Totenkopf is hard pressed there and they are getting round the right flank. Go and see what you can do to clear the rail line.”
As the day progressed on the 17th, the situation was fast becoming desperate. The Wiking Division was now heavily engaged by the 2nd Guards Rifle Corps, and the tanks and infantry of the 24th Tank Corps had taken the apex of Hill 472, though the Grenadiers still fought stubbornly on the lower slopes to the south. The rail line was cut on their left, and the Russians were now at the Chir, which was not a major water obstacle, being no more than 30 to 60 yards wide at any given point. If they could cut the main road at Hill 417 some 8 kilometers southwest of Surovinko, then everything to the east would be effectively cut off, just as Hansen had warned.
The divisions fighting in the Volgograd sector had already noticed the supply trucks arriving that day were lightly loaded, taking things that were mainly still in reserve at their divisions headquarters. A typical German division in offensive mode could consume up to 300 tons of supplies per day, and that was fairly economical relative to their Western counterparts. Yet these were no ordinary German divisions. Had they been at full strength, a typical SS division might use 500 tons per day. That was a lot of truckloads.
Low on supply, the Brandenburgers halted late in the day, needing fuel and ammunition. 1st SS continued to push and broke through to their north to catch Soviet rail crews trying to repair the line that had been cut earlier by German recon units. Grossdeutschland put in one good attack on the center of the enemy line, but otherwise, events there were slowing. It had been raining again, and there was mud, increasing cold, and weariness to contend with in addition to the enemy. So it was that a Korps that should have cut through this Soviet defense like a knife when it was at full strength, now struggled to make small gains of three or four kilometers per day.